Satan Wants Me (26 page)

‘It is difficult to be really good at karate, if one is a woman,’ she said. ‘I hate the way my breasts get in the way of everything. I would rather have been a man. I hate my body.’

‘It’s a very nice body,’ I said out of politeness rather than conviction.

I do not get the impression that she has had many boyfriends. Perhaps she has not had any. Perhaps she scares them off with her talk of karate chops and kicks. She is certainly a virgin. This came out when she was talking about how she believed in old-fashioned values. She was mildly curious about where I lived. I told her that I was living in an esoteric community (I had to explain the meaning of ‘esoteric’), but that I was only living there for the purpose of studying it. I tried to sound offhand about it – as if it was just some really dull thing that I was doing. I need not have bothered, for she obviously did think it really dull. She prattled away about how she always looked at the horoscope page in the back of a magazine called
Honey
, but it was evident that she has not the slightest interest in occultism. She was just disappointed that my copy of
Magick in Theory and Practice
did not have any conjuring tricks in it.

I do not think that there is anything more of interest to write about Maud. She is amazingly vague about her family. Her ‘pa’ is some sort of teacher. Her ‘ma’ has been ill and she doesn’t see her any more. (‘I don’t want to talk about it.’) She shares a flat with a law student in North London. She continues to go to karate classes. She keeps a diary in which she records interesting things which she hears in the salon.

‘Oh dear, I shouldn’t have said that.’ She put up her hand to her mouth in comically simulated dismay. ‘You know what Tallulah Bankhead said, don’t you? “Only good girls keep diaries. Bad girls don’t have time.”’

Maud was pleased to hear that I kept a diary too. (Perhaps she took it as a sign that I might be as boring as her.) Undeterred by my frequent lapses into silence, she kept trying to be jolly.

‘What is high, white and has ears?’

‘What? I don’t know what,’ I replied.

She leant across the table, her eyes wide with triumph.

‘A mountaineer!’ she declared.

I thought about it. Then,

‘I don’t get it. A mountaineer isn’t necessarily particularly high or white.’

‘No, that’s the mountain. Er … no … damn. What I meant to say was that a mountain is high and white and has ears … and … er, let’s see, you would probably say that you didn’t think that a mountain had ears and I would point out that you must have heard of mountaineers. Still, you can see it’s jolly funny.’

Undeterred by her failure with this one, she kept telling jokes, but she kept getting the delivery wrong, or she forgot some crucial point before the punchline, so that it was almost impossible for me to join in her laughter. This whole evening has been a mad aberration. There is no way I can ever see her again, even if it was only for the estimable purpose of luring her into the Lodge so that she could be sacrificed to the Master on the Altar of Choronzon.

Throughout the dinner the waiters, alerted by Granville’s big tip the last time I was here, had made a big fuss of me. When the time came to pay the bill, I had the usual frantic search for my wallet. Panicking madly, I started emptying my pockets on the table. Maud thought the whole thing uproarious until she saw that one of the papers on the table was the order of service for my mother’s funeral and then she looked horribly embarrassed. I walked her to Leicester Square tube-station. At the top of the stairs down into the tube, she awkwardly lunged to kiss me, but I suppose I did not look responsive, for at the last moment she lost her nerve and her lips failed to touch my mouth (I think that was what they were aiming for) and then she stood back. The great kiss not having come off, we ludicrously shook hands.

‘Well this has been a pleasant evening,’ I said. ‘OK I’ve got your number. I’ll call you sometime soon, probably next week, or maybe the week after.’

I could hear my voice. It reeked with insincerity like a television compere.

There was a stricken look in her eyes, but she nodded humbly. I pecked her on the cheek and walked smartly away.

I was practically dancing as I walked away. I was free of the pallid frump. I could, of course, have taken the tube at Leicester Square, but since I did not want to spend a minute more with Maud, I walked up Charing Cross Road revelling in my freedom and took the tube from Tottenham Court Road. Back at the Lodge, I sat up late writing this all down in my diary. (I reckon that I am losing sleep as a result of all this diary-keeping.) Goodnight and good-bye Maud.

Despite some strange dreams, including one of exploring the nest of a great white worm, I was at first cheerful this morning, for I was glad to have got the previous evening’s ordeal over. At breakfast Felton asked how my date had gone. But then, before I could reply, he decided that we should have the day’s diary session early, straight after breakfast. He decided that it would not matter if I was late in taking up my observer’s post at the playground.

I was fed up at this, for if we had the session this early, it meant that Granville would not be around to show me his diary, but I followed Felton into his study. I try, but I rarely succeed in guessing which word or sentence it will be which will draw Felton’s fire. This time it was ‘fancy’.

‘“The instant I saw her I knew that I did not fancy her.” How could you have brought yourself to use that verb in this context, Non Omnis Moriar?’

‘What’s wrong with it? That is how I felt.’

‘But you surely did not feel that this somewhat solid young woman was merely the product of your fancy, or fantasy – something conjured up by your imagination. Nor did you mean that you were breeding her, in the sense that a pigeon-fancier fancies pigeons … ’

And Felton went on and on about the horrid vulgarity of my use of ‘fancy’, before asking abruptly when I was proposing to see Maud again.

‘I thought that I had made it pretty clear in my diary. I am not going to see her again.’

‘But you have to. What on earth was wrong with her?’

‘Maud is stupid. She is impossibly stupid. The Lodge could never have any use for her.’

‘And you suppose that you are clever … And you are clever. But forget cleverness. On the Path you are taking cleverness is as much use as a rubber duck. Resolute obedience will serve you better,’ said Felton. ‘I am ordering you to ask Maud for another date.’

‘Don’t ask me to do this. She is a real turn-off – not good-looking at all.’

‘The demon Choronzon is not good-looking either, but I know, from reading your diary, how badly you want to see him.’

‘Yeah, but I was not planning to take Choronzon out to dinner or to kiss him. Maud just isn’t my type. Nothing could come of it.’

‘Come, come. To take a young woman out to dinner or the cinema is not such a great matter, after all. The Lodge might have tested you with a much harder ordeal.’ Then something came into Felton’s mind and he paused before resuming, ‘Oh, but I forgot to tell you the sad news. Julian is dead. He had an accident in the grounds of his house yesterday. He seems to have tripped and his gun went off in his face. Probate will take some time, but I think that you will find that he has named you as the main beneficiary in his will.’

‘Why me? We hardly knew one another and, insofar as we did, we did not like one another.’ This was true. What I felt hearing Felton’s news was definitely not regret. It was more like fear.

‘But Non Omnis Moriar, it is your future need to be rich which has caused Julian’s death now.’

What does he mean? I cannot relate to being rich or successful. Those are outward things which have no value in my eyes. In that respect, I am quite different from Felton – or indeed my father. They are all so boringly hung-up about things like property and status. I have no need of Julian’s money. But Felton is waiting for a response from me, so,

‘You say it was an accident with a gun?’

‘Accidents tend to happen to people who resist the flow of the energies generated by the rituals of the Great Work. Now I really think that you should ring Maud as soon as possible. Since it is already past nine, I presume that she will be at work at the hairdressing salon. Give her a ring there now. Make a date with her for as soon as possible.’ And pointing to his desk, ‘Here, use my phone.’

I lifted the receiver, but still I hesitated.

‘Do it, Non Omnis Moriar,’ Felton insisted. ‘If not, you will revert to being Peter and you will be dead to the Lodge.’

I dialled and waited.

‘Gear Shears Salon. How can I help you?’ The silly voice sounded like hers.

‘Is that Maud?’

‘Yes, who is this? Is that Peter?’

She sounded a bit surprised. I think that, as much as anything, it may have been the tremor in my voice. As I continued to speak on the phone, I was thinking about Julian’s death and asking myself what had I got myself into and, come to think of it, what was Felton planning for her?

‘Thank you so much for dinner,’ she continued. ‘That was really nice. I was going to write you a thank-you note.’

‘Maud, I would like to see you again – as soon as you have a free evening.’

There was such a long silence at the other end, that I began to wonder if we had been cut off or something.

‘I’m sorry, Peter,’ she said at last. ‘I’m not so sure that that would be a good idea. Pardon me, but I got the impression that you didn’t really want to see me again. I thought it must be that I wasn’t your type.’

‘Oh yes, you’re my type, Maud. At least, I think you might be. Let’s get to know one another a bit better. Let’s meet again. I would like to take you to a film or a concert or something. When are you free next?’

‘Well … I don’t know … OK Peter. When do you suggest?’

‘How about tomorrow evening then, say about six?’

‘Well, OK, but I don’t actually stop working until six. Come to the salon around closing time – six or a little before and we’ll take it from there, shall we?’

It is a grey day. On my way out of Horapollo House heading towards the bus-stop and ultimately the playground, I thought that I caught a glimpse of Cosmic lurking at the end of the road. But then he vanished, maybe because he did not want to be seen by me. If indeed it was Cosmic, that is so sad, him walking around the area, an outcast, longing to be readmitted to the Lodge. However, I do not think that there is anything I can do for him. He has become like one of the larvae, a relic of a human being, dead, but unable to accept that he is dead and therefore unable to sever all ties with his former world.

I only reached the playground in time for the second session. My research is becoming more focused. I am taking a functionalist approach towards the formation and dissolution of playground gangs and I am establishing the normative parameters of inner-directed and outer-directed motivations for joining the said groups. A subtheme in my thesis is social deviance as a source of dysfunctional strategies in gang formation. I am not ready yet – there is still a huge amount of research to do – but by the end of it, I should be able to set out the integrative functions of in-group and out-group behaviour as a pair of quadratic equations – with n signifying need, I.F. signifying the integrative function, and so on. The power of the analytical tool that I am in the process of establishing is so strong that I do not really need the empirical data from the playground any more.

Since I already had had my diary session in the morning, I arrived a little late at the Lodge and, having donned my robe, I proceeded straight into the Meditation Hall. I was expecting another pathworking, but the Lodge always confounds one’s expectations. What we got was a showing of Granville’s film of ‘The Consecration of the Virgin’. When Granville saw me, he smiled and spread his hands out in a mock apologetic gesture. I think he knew how pissed-off I was about not getting a look at his diary that evening. Then the film began. The title was crudely scrawled on a placard at the beginning of the film and, underneath it, the subtitle ‘Demon est Deus Inversus’. There was no soundtrack, so all I heard was the whirring of the projector and occasional sighs of satisfaction from the watching Adepts. Granville proved to be a much less professional film-maker than Kenneth Anger, so the camera swooped and dipped awkwardly, pausing and then bumpily moving on. So, despite Granville’s contempt for trendy filmmakers, what he had produced felt much more experimental than the films we had watched at the Arts Lab.

But there was more and I was so fazed out that it took maybe five minutes before I could suss why the film had such an alienating feel about it. I saw myself bright-eyed and sweaty, simultaneously triumphant and shifty. A strange liquid spewed out of my mouth into the chalice which I then passed to the Master and he drank from it. As he continued to drink, I descended, almost floating, towards Alice’s dark cleft and sodomised it. Then having risen from the ritual couch, as if pulled by invisible strings, I retreated. My robe rose from the floor and draped itself about me. The movements of the celebrants around the couch were also weird, almost as if they were flying and they and I were all in the middle of some freaky dance of the insects. I am slow. Of course, what was happening was that the film was being run backwards, so that we could learn with our own eyes how virgins are made. To see the odd swooping gestures of the celebrants, the ritual objects rising from the floor and inserting themselves in the hands of Adepts and the clouds of incense pouring back into the censers was all somewhat unsettling. But what was worst was the expression on my face when I finally turned again towards the camera. It had to be me, but I hardly recognised myself. Last year Ron, Cosmic, Alice and I all signed up for lectures at the Lodge. Then, sometimes, pathworking exercises took the place of lectures. Next we found ourselves participating in rituals – not very interesting rituals at first. Now this … and they have me on film.

I turned to look at Alice who had been in the row behind me. Although she was trembling, I do not think that it was from fear or anything like that. It was more like fierce pride and delight. She is a freaky chick. I had hated what I saw of myself on the film and I wanted to leave the room as fast as possible, but Felton caught me at the door.